Lithuania’s phosphate producer Lifosa announced on May 27 that it was gearing up to restart production following a shutdown for scheduled maintenance in May 2023. The plant, located in Kedainiai in central Lithuania, is owned by EuroChem Group AG and has an annual capacity of 990,000 mt of DAP and 850,000 mt of phosphoric acid.
Final decisions on the company’s future operations are expected in “a matter of days rather than weeks or months,” said Vitalijus Varnas, Chairman of Lifosa’s independent trade union, noting that this would depend mainly on whether banks would not suspend the company’s payments.
Lifosa’s accounts were frozen after the EU imposed sanctions on Andrey Melnichenko, EuroChem’s main beneficiary, on March 9, 2022 (GM March 11, 2022) following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Melnichenko withdrew as main beneficiary of the group and resigned his position as Non-Executive Director following his inclusion on the EU’s expanded sanctions list.
The Lifosa plant was acquired by EuroChem in 2002. EuroChem announced last July (GM July 7, 2023) that it planned to mothball the Lifosa fertilizer facility due to the impact of sanctions, which the company said has prevented normal and profitable operations at the site.
Lifosa had been under the control of a temporary administrator since the end of May 2022. Production resumed in August 2022 but was halted in mid-September of that year due to a shortage of critical raw materials, including ammonia, and high natural gas prices (GM Sept. 9, 2022).
EuroChem then announced in November 2022 that it was completing preparations to restart Lifosa again in December at a reduced capacity, assuming critical raw materials could be secured (GM Nov. 18, 2022). The plant then went offline in May 2023.